I've been hammock camping for 7 years. It has a comfort, light weight delicacy, motion, and exposure which I like. If the trees sway in the wind, so does my camp. Setting the fly for fair or foul weather reminds me of my years of sailing. When I was setting my camp, I had a revelation. I believed that I had to set the 2 tree fly points and the 2 hammock points on the same trees. My preference was to sleep under the stars with a view of the sky and forest which meant folding back and undoing the fly from 1 tree point and 4 ground points. Last evening I realized that rather than move the fly around with it's 6 hard points of connection staked and 2 to the trees, I could move the hammock with one of it's tree strung points shared with the fly to another tree outside the fly sheet shelter. If it rained I could move the one hammock point to the fly sheet tree. Mouse over for another perspective of my camp and an illusion of three dimensions.

Tony had a nightmare. He dreamed that he had been drugged in a downtown Toronto nightclub and was unable to move. He screamed!

Don talked him down.

Tony had done 8 oil sketches on the trip. I had brought along drawing materials but, had done nothing. I didn't feel like it, too much like work.

Tony went back up the Notch Creek portage to paint waterfalls. I went swimming and bathing with Frank, Andy, and Don at the portage where there was clear water up to the shore.

It was a laugh to consider being seen nude by others. We laughed heartily at the dismay that youth would naturally feel at the sight of old age bared.

Swimming on Grace Lake about 6 days before we were the naked subjects of photographs taken by the Sudbury Art Club who were exploring the lake, playing a game, finding places where the Group of Seven painters painted.

Tony painted while we cavorted naked both days.

"Nothing I haven't seen before." Shouted one of the lady art club photographers.

Swimming naked is a rule out here. Breaking it is not done. I think the rules which are followed began at Ontario summer camps. I'm not sure, I'm not from around here. Yeah, it is as embarssing to be dressed with naked people as it is to be naked with the all dressed.

Where I filtered water near the surface, deep down, there was the brilliant white skeletal remains of a large fish picked to the bone.

I had to clean the filter every two litres because the water was heavy with nutrients and bacteria.

The fish fry and minnows would come to the shore and follow along waiting to be fed. Eventually an older, larger fish came and first imposed a violent order upon the others then, as the day wore into two days, it became satiated and far less aggressive.

I decided to take a swim in the water at our camp. The fish came to me and nibbled at my legs and swam down, around my feet, and towards my penis! I scared them off. I was scared myself. Their nibbling was a bit rough. Anything that fell into the water that didn't defend itself, they would eat. They were not waiting for plate scrapings, they were waiting for anything to fall into the water.

It was all fair game.

It was the second installment of a serial vision I suffered on one of my solo trips 2 years ago: We have taken our bodies out of the natural equation of things. That is the missing nutrient of a healthy eco system: millions upon millions (billions) of gigantic, world dominating killer ape hog bodies.

I like feeding wildlife. I know it is frowned upon but I cannot help myself and now I think I know why: I am paying my body back in a trickle down ecology.

I am definitely not the brightest light in our company but, I am very grateful for a place within it because without the companionship and the free speech I would not have had this gentle vision of what, if I was alone, would have been experienced in frighteningly brutal and lonely proportions.

The book that was making the rounds from Andy to Don? The Social Conquest of Earth by Edward O. Wilson. I am definitely getting a digital copy... (insert time out)... got it from Amazon.